1. Field of the Invention
Systems and methods that relate generally to voice messaging are invented and disclosed. More particularly, systems and methods for managing a system that communicates messages using a voice messaging architecture with geographically distributed components.
2. Related Art
Over the past several decades, voice mail has continued to expand and establish itself as a key element in the successful operations of most businesses. Some voice mail systems consist of components that communicate with each other on the client side of a public switched telephone network (PSTN) and thus, have been geographically co-located. This can be a great disadvantage for companies that have geographically dispersed offices.
In today's global economy, even small businesses may have a need for multiple offices for serving clients, interacting with vendors, or various other reasons. Presently available wide area networks including the Internet support email, video conferencing and other products that allow dispersed business sites appear more seamless and integrated. In addition, wired and wireless telephonic networks provide network-based voice mail services that are used by small business and personal consumers to communicate with others wherever they may be located. Other telecommunication products have been developed to provide voice mail service to small businesses, and other institutions such as schools, hospitals, government offices, and the like. These other telecommunication products generally include local voice message storage.
However, a significant problem that still exists for geographically dispersed offices is providing a telephonic system that operates as a single, co-located system while still serving the specialized needs of the various offices. Establishing a separate data storage facility at each office can be a costly endeavor as duplicative hardware must be purchased and maintained at each site. Furthermore, logistics for enabling inter-office voice mail access can become complex.
For example, it is difficult for an operator of a geographically disperse voice mail system to identify a source of a problem when the system fails to behave as intended. Because hardware components are geographically remote from each other, an operator may not be able to physically observe more than one hardware component at any time. In addition, an operator may not be cognizant of the actual architecture and operational readiness of the components of the voice mail system.
Accordingly, further improvements to geographically disperse voice mail systems are desired.